English League

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Tottenham beats Sunderland 5-1

LONDON — Christian Eriksen scored one goal and set up two more as Tottenham recovered from an early defensive howler to rout Sunderland 5-1, leaving the visitors rooted to the bottom of the Premier League table.

Tottenham put aside speculation about the manager Tim Sherwood’s future and the early mistake to produce a comfortable victory at White Hart Lane to stay in the hunt for a European place.

“I would rather talk about the game,” Sherwood, who was given an 18-month contract in December when he stepped up from coaching the Under-18s to replace sacked Andre Villas-Boas, told Sky Sports. “We’ve got five games left and we believe we can win all five and we don’t know where that could take us.”

Tottenham gifted Sunderland the opener as Vlad Chiriches collected a poor return ball from goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and played a terrible square ball straight into the path of Lee Cattermole, who slotted home his first Sunderland goal.

The hosts equalized when Emmanuel Adebayor bundled home Eriksen’s cross and Harry Kane then prodded home his first Premier League goal to give Spurs a deserved lead. Eriksen netted the third before Adebayor tucked home his second and substitute Gylfi Sigurdsson struck home in stoppage time.

SPANISH LEAGUE. Striker Aritz Aduriz scored two goals to help Athletic Bilbao win 2-1 at Levante yesterday, strengthening the Basque side’s hold on fourth place in the Spanish league.

Bilbao’s second victory in its last six games restored its six-point advantage over fifth-place Sevilla as it clings to the last Champions League berth.

Bilbao defender Mikel San José missed a chance to grab the lead in the 12th minute when he misfired a penalty after Juanfran García fouled Iker Muniain.

But Aduriz struck three minutes later when his shot took a deflection off a defender to catch goalkeeper Keylor Navas out of position. Bilbao continued to dominate both possession and scoring chances, and Aduriz hit again by heading home Ander Herrera’s well-placed cross just before halftime. San José compounded his erred spot kick by scoring an own goal in the 66th when Ruben Perez’s cross hit his leg and looped into the net.